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The Misogynistic Identity Politics of Anders Behring Breivik

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The Misogynistic Identity Politics of Anders Behring Breivik Fascism 10 (2021) 108-133 ‘The Wife Would Put on a Nice Suit, Hat, and Possibly Gloves’: The Misogynistic Identity Politics of Anders Behring Breivik Fredrik Wilhelmsen Faculty of Social Sciences, Nord university, Bodø, Norway [email protected] Abstract By analysing the anti-feminist and misogynistic narratives in Anders Behring Breivik’s compendium 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, this article argues that Breivik’s counterjihadist worldview can be located both as a permutation of ‘generic fascism’ and as a form of nonegalitarian ‘identity politics’. First, the article reframes and reformulates Nancy Fraser’s concept of identity politics, as it sets Breivik’s ideology in relation to her theory of a ‘politics of recognition’, arguing that her theories – originally developed to analyse left-wing politics – can be used to identify how questions of identity are at the centre of the dynamics of Breivik’s far-right ideology. The article then goes on to demonstrate how Breivik’s misogynist narratives are plotted into a broader fascist conception of history, where the alleged feminised and Islamised present is described as an estrangement from a glorious past dominated by white, European men. As a result, Breivik’s futural palingenetic vision of a ‘European cultural renaissance’ is not only going to resurrect a white, homogenous, ‘Christian’ society, but also restore patriarchy. Keywords Norway – counterjihadism – misogyny – identity politics – generic fascism – terrorism – Anders Behring Breivik (1979-) ‘Most Europeans look back on the 1950s as a good time. Our homes were safe, to the point where many people did not bother to lock their doors. Public schools © Fredrik Wilhelmsen, 2021 | doi:10.1163/22116257-10010003 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the prevailingDownloaded cc-by license from Brill.com10/01/2021at the time of 06:32:45AM publication. via free access ‘the wife would put on a nice suit, hat, and possibly gloves’ 109 were generally excellent, and their problems were things like talking in class and running in the halls.’1 After a brief introduction on ‘political correctness’, terrorist and mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik’s narrative of civilizational decline in his compendium 2083: A European Declaration of Independence opens by painting this romantic image of the 1950s as a time of harmony. Much energy has been devoted to exploring how to locate Breivik’s islamophobia inside a broader extreme right discourse – and rightly so. However, from the emphasis put on islamophobia one could easily jump to the conclusion that Breivik thought that the reason we now grapple with bigger issues than kids talking in class is because of the impact of Muslim immigration to the West. Yet, his sprawling 1518-page compendium starts off by naming another culprit: the changed gender roles of Western societies. In the 1950s, his narrative continues, ‘[m]ost men treated women like ladies, and most ladies devoted their time and effort to making good homes, rearing their children well and helping their com- munities through volunteer work. Children grew up in two-parent households, and the mother was there to meet the child when he came home from school. Entertainment was something the whole family could enjoy. What happened?’2 The answer that 2083 provides to its own rhetorical question, is that ‘polit- ical correctness’ or ‘cultural Marxism’ (which he uses as synonyms) have ‘deconstructed’ the traditional gender roles of Western society, thus shattering the natural structure of things – the consequences being low birth rates and a society vulnerable to a perceived Muslim ‘invasion’ and ‘take-over.’ By analysing the anti-feminist and misogynistic narratives permeating Breivik’s compendium, the aim of this paper is to approach the extreme right ideology of the Norwegian terrorist and mass-murderer as a form of non-egali- tarian ‘identity politics’, and to show how this identity politics is connected to an overarching fascist conception of history, where late-modernity is seen as a form of exile from a glorious monocultural and patriarchal past. The article reframes and reformulates Nancy Fraser’s concept of identity politics, considering the ide- ology of Breivik and his favourite writer, ‘Fjordman’, in relation to her theory of a ‘politics of recognition.’3 One of the arguments put forth, is that Fraser’s con- ceptual framework can be a useful heuristic device for analysing not only the feminist, socialist and ‘deconstructive’ movements which Fraser theorises, but also their opposites on the far right. In particular Fraser’s distinction between a 1 Anders Behring Breivik, 2083: A European Declaration of Independence (2011), 12, https:// archive.org/details/2083_A_European_Declaration_of_Independence/page/n41. 2 Breivik, 2083, 12. 3 Nancy Fraser, ‘From Redistribution to Recognition? Dilemmas of Justice in a “Post- Socialist” Age,’ New Left Review 212 (1995), no. 1. Fascism 10 (2021) 108-133 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 06:32:45AM via free access 110 wilhelmsen ‘politics of redistribution’ and a ‘politics of recognition’ can be used to identify – although after some significant reframing – how questions of identity – culture, ‘race’, gender – is at the ‘core’ of the dynamics of far-right extremist movements in general, and the vision of history expounded in 2083 in particular. The main part of the article will be based on a discursive analysis of Breivik’s compendium, which unavoidably entails an analysis of the essays which Fjordman wrote on feminism that made its way into the compendium that Breivik compiled. The reason for this, is the fact that Breivik used these essays – without consent – as building blocks in his own narrative. A total of thirty-seven articles reproduced in 2083 were written by Fjordman, approximately 14,5% of the total word count.4 In order to understand the writings on gender and feminism that were written or reproduced in 2083, I will first discuss how Fraser’s theories can be applied to the far right, then give an outline of the so-called ‘counterjihad’ dis- course that Breivik subscribed to. Before I move on to investigate the misogy- nistic and anti-feminist narratives found in 2083, I will also seek to establish its ideology as a permeation of what Roger Griffin has labelled ‘generic fascism’, highlighting how Breivik’s conception of history and anti-feminist narratives is entwined with a myth of civilisational decadence and rebirth. With some notable exceptions, the misogynies that underpin Breivik’s counterjihad ideology have perhaps not been recognised properly. However, Stephen J. Walton have contributed to the understanding of the issues of gen- der in his article ‘Anti-feminism and Misogyny in Breivik’s “Manifesto”,’5 where he established how gender can be located at ‘the analytical’, ‘the programmatic’, and ‘the autobiographical’ levels of 2083. Another important contribution have been provided by Paul Jackson, who has analyzed Breivik’s and Fjordman’s fas- cist rhetoric, locating their take on gender issues as one part of their broader fascist discourse.6 A third valuable contribution has been provided by Mattias Gardell, who has argued along similar lines as this current article: that Breivik ‘firmly stands in the fascist tradition’7 and that anti-feminism is a key part of his 4 Paul Jackson, ‘The License to Hate: Peder Jensen’s Fascist Rhetoric in Anders Breivik’s Manifesto “2083: A European Declaration of Independence”,’ Democracy and Security 9, no. 3 (2013): 247–269, https://doi.org/10.1080/17419166.2013.802986. 5 Stephen J. Walton, ‘Anti-Feminism and Misogyny in Breivik’s “Manifesto”,’ NORA—Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research 20 (2012): 4–11, https://doi.org/10.1080/08038740.2 011.650707. 6 Jackson, ‘The License to Hate.’ 7 Mattias Gardell, ‘Crusader Dreams: Oslo 22/7, Islamophobia, and the Quest for a Monocultural Europe,’ Terrorism and Political Violence 26, no. 1 (2014), 129–155, https://doi. org/10.1080/09546553.2014.849930. FascismDownloaded from10 (2021)Brill.com10/01/2021 108-133 06:32:45AM via free access ‘the wife would put on a nice suit, hat, and possibly gloves’ 111 worldview. However, the added value of this current article, is that it delves far deeper into the anti-feminist narratives than Jackson and Gardell – who both treat it more briefly – at the same time as it locates the anti-feminism in the context of theories of both ‘identity politics’ and ‘generic fascism’ – perspec- tives lacking in Walton’s article, which treats Breivik’s misogynies in isolation. The Identity Politics of the Extreme Right Despite the lack of attention paid to the anti-feminist and misogynistic cur- rents in Breivik’s ideology, several scholars have called for more focus on gen- der and the far right. Cynthia Miller-Idriss has for instance drawn attention to how masculinity and nationalism is mutually reinforced in far-right ideologies: Miller-Idriss has shown how the masculine ideals of the far-right link contem- porary European men to a myth of a heroic past, and that they highlight what it means to be a ‘real man’ within the national community, as well as demar- cating borders which separate right-wing values from what is perceived as the hegemonic norms in society.8 Also Cas Mudde has called for more attention to gender and the far-right, highlighting the ‘deeply gendered’9 narratives of the far right. According to Mudde, far-right parties are not only predominantly Männerparteien. Far-right worldviews also ascribe a key role to allegedly ‘natural differences’ between the sexes.10 In this context, Mudde has pointed out how far-right narratives of the threatened national community allocate women a key – yet subordinated – role in society: Since only women can give birth to children, and birth-rates are imagined to be of utmost importance in order to ensure the survival of the nation; the woman’s role as mother and spouse becomes typically elevated into something heroic in the far-right narratives of civilisational decline.
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